Pensionary reform of a trap for women?

     The article was prepared on the base of the report of Marina Eugenievna Baskakova, PhD in Economics, senior research assistant of the Institute of Social and Economic Problems of the Population, Russian Academy of Science; as well as other participants’ reports at the round table «International Year of Elderly People: a woman’s view» organized by Russian social movement «For Civil Rights».
      Before 1990 the superannuation system of the Russian federation was strictly distributive and was based on the principle of «solidarity of generations». According to this principle, retiring pension is provided from the income of those who are working today. Stability of such system depends directly on the proportion between the number of fee payers and the number of pensioners. Well-being of the superannuation system based on the «solidarity of generations» is guaranteed when there are 10 times more payers than recipients. In the past decade the proportion between active manpower and retired citizens has been steadily falling. With these demographic changes taking place, it is necessary either to make high pensionary fees still higher or to increase the retirement age. The alternative is to switch (partly or totally) to the accumulative principle, according to which each worker is accumulating his future pension day by day, and the allowance size directly depends on the amount of his pensionary fees proportional to the present salary and length of service.
      Since the beginning of the 90-s the Russian superannuation system started to switch gradually to the insurance principle. The recently formed Superannuation Fund was independent of the state, and there were insurance fees paid to it by both workers and employers. Our superannuation system is mostly distributive still, but it is presumed that in time it will become mixed, i.e. distributive-accumulative.
      According to the Program of reforming of the superannuation system, the latter will have two essential components: compulsory pension guaranteed by the state and additional «non-state» pension. The state pension in its turn will be constituted by two parts:
      1. State social pensions for people who could not earn an insurance pension during their life.
      2. State earned pensions.
      The latter will also consist of two approximately equal parts:
      - Nominally accumulative (and in fact distributive, based on the «solidarity of generations» principle), financed by the current receipts of the Superannuation Fund of the RF. The amount of a worker’s allowance will be defined by the amount and duration of paying pensionary fees.
      - Accumulative part, in which pension payments will depend only on the amount of a worker’s savings on his personal account, expected earning power of the account balance in the period of paying the allowance and life expectancy of an insured person after his retirement.